This invention relates, in general, to an improvement of a slot machine and more particularly to a token feed apparatus employed in a slot machine for feeding tokens inserted into the slot machine prior to the start of a game, into a token collection basket.
It is a general practice when playing a slot machine game that a player inserts several tokens or coins (hereinafter referred to as "tokens") into a slot formed on a front door of the slot machine prior to the start of a game. Such inserted tokens are collected in a token collection bucket within a main body of the slot machine, which bucket is disposed behind the rear surface of the front door, and are thereafter fed into a hopper device, i.e., a token pay-out device known per se. When the player wins a prize, the token pay-out device is actuated to pay out a predetermined number of tokens from the tokens that have previously been fed into the token collection bucket, according to the value of the prize.
However, since conventional slot machines are constituted such that the tokens inserted into the inlet port simply fall into the token collection bucket from the rear surface of the front door, the tokens accumulate in the front side, i.e., the side near to the front door, of the token collection bucket. This has the crucial disadvantage or drawback that even though there may not be many coins inside the token collection bucket, the tokens are apt to overflow from the front side of the token collection bucket.
In order to eliminate the above-mentioned disadvantage, there has been proposed another slot machine, wherein an overflow chute is attached to the front side of a token collection bucket and overflowing tokens are collected in a separately provided overflow bucket. However, in this case, there is still the risk that overflow may take place before a sufficient number of tokens has accumulated inside the token collection bucket. In that latter case, if a player repeatedly wins large prizes which pay large numbers of tokens, it may happen that in spite of a sufficient accumulation of tokens in the overflow bucket, there will be a shortage of tokens available to be paid out.
The present invention seeks to remedy the above-mentioned circumstance.